Colonial Records of Virginia | Page 3

and second papers in this pamphlet to be printed but it
was refused. The Commission having been dissolved the Committee on
the Library have assumed the responsibility and herewith submit this
instalment of these interesting documents, which were written before
the Colony of Maryland was known, and all of which, save the first,
were never before printed.
The Report of the proceedings of the first Assembly is prefaced with
the introductory note published with Mr. Bancroft's copy, to which a
few notes explanatory have been added.
Trusting that this instalment of these historical records of the Ancient
Dominion will be acceptable to the students of our early history, and
sufficiently impress the members of the Legislature with their value to
move them to make an appropriation sufficient to print all that has been
obtained, this is
Respectfully submitted, by your obedient servants,
THOS. H. WYNNE, } Chm. Senate Com. on Library, } } Sub
Committee in W.S. GILMAN, Charge of Library. } Charge of Library.
Chm. House Com. on Library. }

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
Virginia, for twelve years after its settlement, languished under the
government of Sir Thomas Smith, Treasurer of the Virginia Company
in England. The Colony was ruled during that period by laws written in
blood; and its history shows how the narrow selfishness of despotic
power could counteract the best efforts of benevolence. The colonists

suffered an extremity of distress too horrible to be described. In April,
1619, Sir George Yeardley arrived. Of the emigrants who had been sent
over at great cost, not one in twenty then remained alive. "In James
Citty were only those houses that Sir Thomas Gates built in the tyme of
his government, with one wherein the Governor allwayes dwelt, and a
church, built wholly at the charge of the inhabitants of that citye, of
timber, being fifty foote in length and twenty foot in breadth." At
Henrico, now Richmond, there were no more than "three old houses, a
poor ruinated Church, with some few poore buildings in the Islande."[1]
"For ministers to instruct the people, he founde only three authorized,
two others who never received their orders." "The natives he founde
uppon doubtfull termes;" so that when the twelve years of Sir Thomas
Smith's government expired, Virginia, according to the "judgements" of
those who were then members of the Colony, was "in a poore
estate."[A]
From the moment of Yeardley's arrival dates the real life of Virginia.
He brought with him "Commissions and instructions from the
Company for the better establishinge of a Commonwealth heere."[B]
He made proclamation, "that those cruell lawes by which we" (I use the
words of the Ancient Planters themselves) "had soe longe been
governed, were now abrogated, and that we were to be governed by
those free lawes which his Majesties subjectes live under in Englande."
Nor were these considerations made dependent on the good will of
administrative officers.
"And that they might have a hande in the governinge of themselves,"
such are the words of the Planters, "yt was graunted that a generall
Assemblie shoulde be helde yearly once, whereat were to be present the
Gov^r and Counsell w^{th} two Burgesses from each Plantation, freely
to be elected by the Inhabitants thereof, this Assemblie to have power
to make and ordaine whatsoever lawes and orders should by them be
thought good and proffitable for our subsistance."[C]
In conformity with these instructions, Sir George Yeardley "sente his
summons all over the country, as well to invite those of the Counsell of
Estate that were absente, as also for the election of Burgesses;"[D] and

on Friday, the 30th day of July, 1619, the first elective legislative body
of this continent assembled at James City.
In the relation of Master John Rolfe, inserted by Captain John Smith in
his History of Virginia,[E] there is this meagre notice of the Assembly:
"The 25 of June came in the Triall with Corne and Cattell in all safety,
which tooke from vs cleerely all feare of famine; then our gouernor and
councell caused Burgesses to be chosen in all places and met at a
generall Assembly, where all matters were debated thought expedient
for the good of the Colony." This account did not attract the attention of
Beverley, the early historian of Virginia, who denies that there was any
Assembly held there before May, 1620.[F]
The careful Stith, whose work is not to be corrected without a hearty
recognition of his superior diligence and exemplary fidelity, gives an
account[G] of this first legislative body, though he errs a little in the
date by an inference from Rolfe's narrative, which the words do not
warrant.
The prosperity of Virginia begins with the day when it received, as "a
commonwealth," the freedom to make laws for itself. In a solemn
address to King James, which